Stress Managment- Worry is the Prescription for an Ulcer

Have you ever listened to someone, perhaps even to your self, talk about being worried? You'll hear things like, "I'm so worried", "I'm worried sick", or as my mom used to tell me, "You worry me to death!"
Certainly makes worry sound like a very powerful force, doesn't it? And as a matter of fact, it is. Worry can make us sick, and in it's most extreme form, it can kill us.
Then why in the world do we do this thing called worry? For some people, it's simply become an emotional habit that they no longer think about. "I come from a family of worriers", as if it's a genetic feature like eye color. For others, it's how to show you care about someone. "If I didn't care about you, I wouldn't worry", as if worry is a form of love someone would want to receive.
Here's what happens when we worry: because our brain cannot tell the difference between reality and a vividly imagined picture (worry), we respond the same way emotionally. So when we worry, our brains have gone into the future and created a vivid living color picture of our worry, and then our emotions, and even our physiology, rush up to match the picture.
Here's a little experiment that will clearly show what I mean. Picture yourself at home in your kitchen, and then walking over to the refrigerator and pulling out a great big juicy lemon. Take it over to the counter, cut it in half, smell the juice and feel the juice on your fingers. Now cut one of the halves in half. More juice, more smell. Now cut a slice from one of the sections. More juice, more smell. Now bring that slice up to your nose and take a sniff. Then, finally, take a big bite of the lemon.
If your are like most folks, your mouth is watering now, and you may even be puckering up a bit too. Here's the important thing to notice for our purposes: there is no lemon. You vividly imagined, with my guidance, a picture that caused a physiological response in your body. Remember, there is no lemon.
And so it is when we worry.
So that leaves us with a couple of choices when we worry: we can get an ulcer or we can get moving. Let's take a closer look at each of these options.
How to Get an Ulcer
Worry. A lot. Raise it to an art form.
Make sure to worry about things you can do nothing about.
Or if you are worried about things you can do something about, be sure not to do anything about it.
Let your worry cause you to live all your moments in the future, missing the present of the present.
Become a "what-if person": you know, "what if this happens, what if that happens....."
How to Get Moving
Make a distinction between worry and concern. Worry freezes you, concern motivates you.
Allow your worry and concern to motivate you to plan for the future. Remember, the best way to predict the future is to create as much of it as you can.
Pray. A lot.
Since worry is really nothing more than using our imagination in a negative way, turn the process on it's head. Instead of vividly imagining the worst possible outcome, switch to vividly imagining the best possible outcome, and/or the outcome you would like to have happen.
I've saved the best for last. The best cure that I know for worry is to TAKE ACTION! Create a plan, plan for the future, do every thing you can to prevent the negative outcomes you don't want and do every thing you can to get the positive outcomes you do want.
The neat thing here is that if you do all the above suggestions to get moving, you won't have time or space in your brain to worry. And my guess is you will enjoy life much more.
Thanks for reading, and keep the change.

Stress Managment and Mastery: Progress vs. Perfection

David Bowie once sang, "Ch-ch-changes, tryin' to face the strain."
And though working on changes in our lives can be difficult at times, it really doesn't have to be such a strain.
Where did we get the notion that change has to be such a struggle? And what would it be like if we could make change easier?
That's what I have spent most of my career doing, finding the simplest, fastest and most effective ways to help people get the changes they want and need.
With that in mind, let's look at one of the major roadblocks to achieving lasting change, and then look at what to do about it.
Perfection vs. Progress
The failure to understand the important distinction between perfection and progress is a major stumbling block to lasting change.
Far too many people get stuck in demanding perfection from themselves and from others.
This leaves little or no room for appreciating the progress that might be happening.
So let's take a look and discover whether you are demanding perfection or appreciating progress. And then most importantly, how to focus on progress.
Demanding Perfection
So many people are stuck in the myth that in order to change, you have to do it perfectly, with no slip-ups. That's just not reality.
Here are some signs that you may be stuck in demanding perfection:
If you slip up just once, i.e., you go off your diet for one night, you say the heck with it and trash the whole plan.
You feel constantly defeated when trying to change.
You try to change too much all at once. There is just no way to get rid of 30 pounds in one month without amputation.
Appreciating Progress
Even the smallest amount of progress is still progress. It's still change. Here's how to focus on appreciating the progress:
Celebrate all improvements, even the smallest changes.
If a change looks too big to accomplish, break it down into smaller, more manageable parts, i.e. Just for today, I will ...
Do a little bit more, go a little bit further, each day.
There's the story of a middle-aged man who decided to take up running. The first day, he could only make it past his own house before he had to stop. The next day he went one house further, the next day another house further and so on. In less than a year, he entered and completed a marathon - that's 26-plus miles.
Recognize the process of change. Most folks think that once they learn something new, the changes happen all at once. Sometimes that's true, but more often change happens in four stages:
1. You learn some new skills, but do the same old thing that doesn't work again.
2. You catch yourself in the middle of doing the same old thing that doesn't work, stop and then do something new and different.
3. You stop yourself before you do the same old thing that doesn't work, and do something new and different.
4. You just naturally do something new and different.
Change does not have to be a strain, or even very difficult at all. You just have to enjoy the progress and keep at it.
Remember, in the battle between the rock and the river, the river always wins because the river just keeps at it.

Stress Managment: Worry - Anxiety - Fear

Worry/Anxiety
Anxiety and its partner, worry,' are specific forms of fear. They can also be some of the most insidious and crippling emotions.
Worry can be useful if it motivates you to take action to make changes. Worry then becomes action.
Worry becomes a problem when we believe the big lie that "if only I worry enough about this, it will be OK"
The best definition I've ever heard of anxiety goes like this:
"Anxiety is when we mentally fastforward - to some possible future problem and our emotions catch up to match up our picture."
In other words, anxiety is often caused by repeatedly picturing negative outcomes and then dragging our emotions along for the ride.
Fear
All of us must deal with fear in our lives. As a matter of fact, people who tell me they are never afraid tend to scare me.
It's my experience that they are lying, or worse.
Fear is so common that we can identify several general fears that are familiar to all of us. Here is a partial list of fears I hear about regularly in my office:
o Fear of rejection. From the nervous teen-age boy who hangs up the phone when the girl answers, to the adult who is afraid to ask for a raise, fear of rejection keeps us from asking for what we want.
o Fear of failure.
o Fear of success.
o Fear of being smothered or fear of being abandoned in elationships.
While there are certainly times when fear is an appropriate response, fear many times simply holds us back from accomplishing what we want.
Here are two tips for dealing successfully with fear.
o Remember that courage is not having no fear at all. Courage is feeling the fear and proceeding anyway.
o One of the best ways of dealing with fear that I've found comes in the form of an acronym: Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real.
What "false evidence" are you allowing to limit your life? What might that mean when you examine some of your fears?

Stress Managment: 12 Universal Laws for Managing Anger

1. The Law of Everyone
It is not neccessarily wrong to get angry. You get angry, I get angry, all God's children get angry. It's what we do with our anger that makes the difference.
2. The Law of Stress
Although we don't often think of anger as a form of stress, it is by far one of the largest and most destructive forms of daily stress. Manage your anger, and you manage a large amount of your stress.
3. The Law of Choice
Anger is rarely if ever an automatic response. It's a choice. It's a choice because we have to think about something before we get angry.
4. The Law of Shoulds
We all have beliefs about how the world and the people around us should behave. When these beliefs are violated, anger is a natural, and sometimes reasonable response. The problem is that when we "should" on somebody, it can become a trigger for our anger.
For example, if we run the sentence "that driver should not have cut in front of me" over and over in our heads, the response is not likely to be pretty. At best we'll raise our blood pressure, and at worst do something really stupid.
5. The Law of Blame
Another one of our thoughts that lead quickly to anger involves
blaming someone or something. The dance of blame is a deadly two step:
1) someone is at fault, and
2) they should be punished - anger can be very punishing.
6. The Law of Cause
This one is closely related to the law of blame. There is a myth in our culture that very few people ever question. The best example is the phrase "he made me angry."
Well, bull! No one can make us angry without our cooperation.
7. The Law of Emflaming
Another myth is that if we are able to vent our anger it will
automatically decrease. That is not necessarily so. I once watched a neighbor stomp around the side of his house, grumbling and swearing as he went. Stomping by the air conditioning unit, he smashed his fist down on top of it. That move not only made him more angry, it looked to me like it hurt a lot too. Grumbling and swearing even louder, he stomps into his backyard and kicks a lounge chair. It didn't appear to calm
him down, and it looked like that one hurt too. I found out later that he broke both his hand and his foot on his romp around the yard.
8. The Law of Source
In almost every case, anger is a secondary emotion. In other words, we experience some other strong emotion before we feel the anger. Follow the source and you usually come up with one of three strong emotions - fear, frustration or hurt, or some combination of the above. Deal with fear, frustration and hurt and you can cut anger off at the pass.
9. The Law of Battles
Learn to pick your battles. If you get angry at everything, then your anger means nothing. If that sounds confusing, here's an example: how much would gold be worth if we all had it in abundance? That's right, not much. Gold is valuable because it is so rare. If you are always getting angry, people stop taking you seriously and just want to avoid you.
10. The Law of Worth
Ask your self this question: "is this situation worth getting angry over?" Most time it just isn't.
11. The Law of Muscles
Learn to exercise your choice muscles.We can choose to be angry or we can choose another way of handling the situation.
12. The Law of Channeling
When you do get angry, channel it into something you can use to benefit you, such as motivating you into changing what can be changed.

A Simple Tool For Marketing Your Event Managment Company

People always have an event to plan, however, they rarely give it the proper time and attention until deadlines start rolling in. This is true of weddings, anniversary parties, vow renewals and graduation parties. The goal of your event managment company is to get them thinking about important details before it is too late to make them happen easily. One surefire tool that you can use to bring both your cause and your company to the forefront of people's minds is simple to use and easy to create.
Article marketing has long been an effective online tool for getting the word out about your business. This is when companies create tight, informative articles that draw readers in by providing invaluable information that can be easily accessed. There is another tier however to this level of marketing that you can use to remind potential clients of their pending events and assert yourself as the best resource for event planning.
With each article that you write you can refer potential clients to an e-mail newsletter that your company offers for free. Each month or twice monthly you can share updates and information with a growing group of individuals. By requesting your newsletter individuals allow you access to their e-mail address, which enables you to compile a comprehensive mailing list of people and companies that are interested in event management services.
In each publication you have a prime opportunity to remind your readers that planning should happen well before the event itself. You can offer useful tips for delegating responsibilities and managing resources. You can also detail why having a professional planner for certain events is often necessary.
They key is to make sure that every thing that is published in your name online represent valid and valuable data. Using spam to promote your business will rapidly establish an unsavory and lasting reputation. Most frequent internet users have very little patience with postings that prove a waste of their time, and the unlimited options that they have will quickly guide these same away from a site, article or newsletter that is poorly and hastily designed.
Think fresh content. Read the articles that were written by others in your niche and make it a point to cover grounds that have not already been tread and re-tread. Essentially, the idea is to develop your own voice and to maintain a unique edge over your competitors.
You should also never underestimate the power of free things. Your newsletter is free and that is a draw in itself. You can also use this opportunity to advertise free offers that you are able to present without jeopardizing the financial stability of your company. This can be a free consultation, free centerpiece or other thoughtful item that you business can afford to extend.
With a little diligence and innovation you can bring your event managment company to the forefront of the available market. You can remind potential clients that it is necessary to get planning done early and helpful to have professional assistance on the way. With very little money and time invested, you can provide a huge boost to your business.

grup pic in managment

Project and product in managment

Time Management

Business Plan Organisation Management: How Do You Organise Your Business For Profit And Growth

Every company needs a sound and robust business model that scales as life changes. Many small businesses start with a business plan based on guesses.
Then as life rolls on, there is never time to update it to reflect your evolving situation. When your accountant nags you, you just feel bad. And your bank manager makes a new business plan a condition for any money discussions so you rush into guessing again.
As I coach my clients, I encourage them to create a simple, effective Business Plan that will earn them money as their business grows and their market changes.
Be succinct and clear
I encourage the owner to write their Business Plan in less than two sides of A4. In my experience with small businesses, briefer is better. The four sections should each have a couple of paragraphs to say:

• Why are we in business? - your purpose and intentions in running the business
• What do we sell? - your products, services and the combinations that customers want to buy
• Who do we sell to? - your clients' demographics, locations, spending habits and interests
• How do we plan to run the business? - staff, structure, targets, management and a simple cashflow table (in an appendix) predicting the income and expenses for the next 12 months

Stay flexible and customer-centredYou need to consider the Scale, Scope and Structure of your business and align them with your long term Mission. Then you can include this detail in the right paragraphs of your Business Plan.
Your mission is simply "Why are you running the business?" State who your customers are, the needs you satisfy with products and services and your unique approach to your market. A strap line of 15 words is ideal.
Your scale describes your team - whether you employ them, associate with them or do sub-contracting. You might also show how the effort will flex as your sales levels change.
Your scope outlines the customers you want to work for and the key products and services you expect to sell to them. Where your market has a number of niches, each could be described individually.
Your structure defines how you sell to clients, the experience and skills needed for purchasing, production and delivery and how you manage your cash flow.
Being small, you are unlikely to have departments but you will have individuals following processes within a team. On the one hand, organising your firm will always be an exercise in frustration because the supply of your products and services rarely equals the customers' demands. On the other hand, small companies thrive by picking off market opportunities to which their bigger competitors cannot respond quickly:

• Time and market events overtake even the best organisation - so design flexibility into your business ready for when you need it.
• Unintended consequences grow with time - so keep watching for the unexpected. Set up triggers to flag possible issues, agree who monitors each flag and make the most interested person responsible for fixes.
• Make-buy decisions always trade-off costs against co-ordination - so monitor how the actions of your suppliers and associates effect your 'internal' costs of quality control, communication and re-work. Be prepared with a 'plan B' and re-take these make-buy decisions at least once a year to keep people on their toes.
• Understand the balance points in your business. But only re-organise once in three years - even small changes take several months to work through a business.

Look for resultsBefore you finalise the draft of your business plan, you need to answer four questions honestly:

• Do you tell a clear story in simple business terms?
• Do you show where extra investment (of money or effort) will lead to increased returns?
• Do you show where unique value is added for your customers?
• Do you describe how you expect to maintain your competitive edge even as your market changes?

Finally It is my experience that an effective plan is marked with coffee stains and pencilled comments that show the business owner has reviewed it month and re-written it yearly. As you keep your business plan focused on the needs of your clients, you will thrive.

Time Management Techniques So You Can Do it Now!

Most people have a tendency to put off important tasks. Some may delay for just a little bit of time, while others are chronic procrastinators. The key to helping you get more done is realizing when you are procrastinating and start managing your time better. Unfortunately procrastination is a habit, but fortunately so is time management.
What is your prickly pear?
Typically there is one big task that you will do anything to avoid. You will do chores, shuffle papers, play games anything to avoid this one task. A prickly pear is actually only prickly on the outside, the good stuff is inside. Often the big task is like this, fear and worry are the spikes on the outside. For this reason you avoid it, but once conquered, you find it was not that bad and the benefit of completing it helps you reach the fruit inside. Each day take on your prickly pear first, then the rest of the day will go easier from there.
Is there a punishment?
Unfortunately when you do not get a task done, you face some sort of punishment. The adage of a stitch in time saves nine, means that if you do one stitch now, you avoid nine later. Often by avoiding a task you can cause yourself more pain. The art of this time management technique is identifying what will happen if you continue to delay. Maybe you need to do like when your parents did, and make a punishment, like taking away something you enjoy.
Do you have a reward?
This time management technique is almost the complete opposite of the previous. You actually give yourself a reward upon completion of that task you were avoiding. Give yourself time to play a favorite game or visiting the bookstore. Plus you also get the added reward of having that task completed!
Can Peer Pressure help?
Sometimes just knowing someone is going to ask you how you are doing is enough pressure to kill task avoidance. Ask a trusted friend or co-worker to check with you. You can set up a daily 10 minute accountability call with another to push you into doing it now. This time management technique is surprisingly effective if your partner is willing to question you and make you accountable.
What is your motivation?
There are many time management techniques available. These are just a few ideas, what may work for you may be a combination of some of these techniques. One of these may work as is. But find a time management technique that motivates you and makes you work. Those big scary tasks will look a lot smaller once you conquered them!

Government Fuel Management - Do They Really Have It?

There are many areas of fuel management. Today I want to provide you with sound and easy methods to improve your government fuel management program now. There are 3 main keys to success in any government fuel management program.
• Fleet Card
• Controls
• Fuel Audits
With each type of government it is a matter of drilling down to make your fuel management program better.
With state governments they need the 3 main keys from there they need to make sure all of their fleet fueling is done on the same platform, which starts with the fleet card. There are a few good card providers out there such as 360 Comdata MasterCard and WEX to name a couple. A state government needs every fleet card to have controls on the vehicle, pin numbers, who fueled the vehicle, odometer reading, time of day fuelings can take place, how many times a day a vehicle can fuel.
All state government fixed site locations need to be able to accept the same fleet fuel card that can be used on the street at a retail fuel location. This allows all of the data to be warehoused in the same area, with the same controls. It also allows fuel audits to be performed easier. A fuel audit that reviews 30 out of 3,000 transactions is not a fuel audit. All fleet fuel transaction must be audited to be success.
Municipal government has the same needs as state government the difference is they operate in smaller geographic areas. This allows tighter controls to be put in place and improve fleet fuel discounts. A municipal government runs its fleet in certain areas or zip codes, this allows fuel locations out of these areas to be locked down or in other words your fleet won't be able to get fuel there. Control. In the area that your fleet does buy fuel, your fuel purchasing manager can aggregate your fuel volume and negotiate discounts with retail fuel stations in your area. This will lower your fuel management cost and improve the controls on your fleet.
City governments depending on the size operate more like a state then municipality. In fuel management the biggest problem is theft. Do you read the stories in the internet about the amount of fuel thefts that happen? Most involve governments and it's due to the lack of controls and processes that are in place. With the fleet fuel cards make it a rule that they pay at the pump, less change to steal off the fuel card if the transactions is happening at the pump. An example of fuel theft that happens off, your employee goes into the station asks for $30 on pump number 4. They go out and pump $20 and come back into the store in most cases the clerk at the store will give them back $10 in cash. And who said there are no free lunches. You have to audit everything.
As you dive into university fuel management you can tighten the controls more and improve your fuel discounts. Your fleet fueling is going to be taken place in a fairly small geographic area. Anything outside of your fuel area should shut off, again limit your exposure. Your fleet is operating in this small area, go to 1 or 2 suppliers and negotiate a discount for your fuel. Direct all of your fleet fuel card holders that these are the preferred locations for fueling. Follow up an audit the fleet fuel bill. Make sure the deals you put in place are really happening. A few pennies here can add up to tens of thousands of dollars real quick.
Fleet fuel cards, controls and fuel audits if your government fuel management program is doing these things you are on solid ground for success in your fleet fueling.

How To Do Brand Management

What's in the pool of "Traditional Marketing techniques"?
The concept of traditional marketing that is "Features and Benefits" is changing, but the main base remains on the same. The components of any kind of a marketing approach are:
1. Features and Benefits
2. Narrow definition of product categories and competition
3. customers are rational decision-makers
4. Methods are analytical, quantitative and verbal
The perceptions and associations consumers have about brands go beyond their functional attributes and benefits, and include non-functional, symbolic qualities, often referred to as "Brand Image". Among these aspects of brand image are perceptions and associations about the brand's "personality," the "set of human-like characteristics associated with a brand". This brand image is the only thing that is to be kept intact to get the maximum "Customer life-time value" or the "Customer equity value".
Culture as the basis of Brand image building:
The brand perception is an important factor while taking any decision regarding the brand image building for any type of product category. The perceived personality of a brand can be shaped by marketers via "transferring cultural meaning" into it in various ways, such as by associating the brand in communications with an endorser or place that already possesses the personality or meaning considered strategically desirable for that brand. Any brand value can be factored into five components which differentiate one from the other.
The factors as leveled are:
a. Sincerity (sample item: honest)
b. Excitement (daring)
c. Competence (reliable)
d. Sophistication (upper-class)
e. Ruggedness (tough)
The need for "Consumer Oriented Marketing":
Now-a-days the concept of "Experiential Marketing" is gradually up-coming, so the marketers need to follow the suit and design their products to satisfy the customers at the maximum possible level. The companies are offering strategic Experiential Modules (SEMs) which have its own distinct structure and marketing principles.
The marketers need to be familiar with all the relative measures, like-
a. Sensory experiences(SENSE)
b. Affective Experiences(FEEL)
c. Creative Cognitive Experiences(THINK)
d. Physical Experiences and entire Life-Style(ACT)
e. Social Identity Experiences (RELATE)
CRM as the new weapon for the marketers:
In the present era "Cause Related Marketing "is taking a huge space in the marketing arena, so the marketers are opting for viable opportunities which would strengthen their positioning in the market place. In most of the cases the consumers feel an ownership with the brands and that should be the strategic objective for any marketer. Marketing aesthetics practically equated "equated needs" with "aesthetic needs".
Brand characteristics:
A major avenue for revenue growth in companies today is the extension of their existing brands into new categories, requiring the systematic study of many candidate categories on "personality" and "image" dimensions to see which ones "best fit" and "match" the personality of the brand being extended. Many companies also seek to leverage their existing brand assets via licensing deals to other manufacturers in other categories or via co-branding promotions and arrangements. If the "recall rate" is good enough, the company launch its new varieties and if it's not, then it has to re-launch the present entire product portfolio.
Try to differentiate between "Category personality" and "Brand personality":
The "Category personality" and "Brand personality" are the two different things which are to be differentiated by thy marketers. In any case, any factor analysis of a (pooled brand × category data matrix) must partial out the "category personality" from the "brand's personality," for otherwise it could confound the two. The "category generic" attributes are common to all the products in the same product range. Those brands which best capture a category's mythic "desired" personality might gain in preference, since their brand personality is now most "relevant" to consumer choice criteria in that category. There exists a need for the development of research methodologies that keeps apart product category influences from brand personality perceptions.
Brand Stewards:
The brand stewards or the brand managers, marketing managers are responsible for the welfare of any brand. Brand stewards also include those who work on brand assignments at marketing communication agencies and who have a major influence on the brand's marketing program. The "Brand Team" is referred to that group who ideally complement each other in managing brands and their identities.
Branding Rules:
Marketers urgently need tools to manage vast groups of brands, not as individual elements or collections under one corporate roof, but as complex systems that transcend corporate boundaries. The popularity that a brand carries with it is to be well maintained to move up to the value chain. So it is all about the correct decision at the correct time and everything that does matter is the execution part of the whole cycle. New formulations are to be made to beat the competitors; a brand survives in the minds of consumers. Most of the customers fall under "impulse buying category".
Experiential Brands are the market leaders:
Brands are the most valuable assets of any company, so while launching a brand a company must look into its feasibility by doing market research and compare that with the competitor's product. These steps always give an insight about the fate of the brands. Definitely the war has started between brands and not between any organizations. So to continue with this kind of stature that the brands posses, the companies need to offer more and more lucrative proposals. The brand value or brand worth is always in a stake if not taken care properly.

Leadership Vs Management - Leaders Manage, Do Managers Lead?

After many years of debate, one might assume this issue is settled. Apparently not. There are still articles written and books published by authors who want to tell us the difference, and I too have offered my opinions on the subject. I've developed the somewhat unpopular opinion that leadership and management are really subsets of each other. Let me explain.
A manager makes decisions about resources. They are trained to know those resources and understand how best to utilize, allocate, and gain the most efficiency from them.
Leadership is a little more difficult to effectively define. A leader is responsible for, well, leading. There are all sorts of definitions of leading, but for our purposes we'll say leading is causing people to do things. Many of you are probably saying, but wait, leading is much more than that, leading is seeing the future, developing people, getting the best out of them, etc, etc. And, you would be correct. All those things describe leadership. However, the basic job of a leader is to take people somewhere; to effectively take care of the human resource.
That's right, people are a resource. It's sometimes considered a little tactless to say that, but it is a hard reality. That's why I say leaders and managers are subsets of each other. In order to accomplish their goals, leaders must manage the human resource. Leaders must be managers. On the other hand, in order to properly manage the human resource, managers must know how to lead people. In that regard, managers must be leaders.
Many of the definitions of leadership center on good leadership towards good goals. There is also bad leadership, which while bad, is still leadership. Let's look at everyone's favorite example. In the mid to late 1930's Adolph Hitler was a pretty good leader. He was a despicable human perhaps, and certainly leading towards bad goals, but still a good leader if one measures his effectiveness. By the early 1940s, Hitler, while still a despicable human, and still leading toward bad goals, began to become a bad leader. But, he was no less a leader.
So what's the point of all this? Simply this. People don't like to think of themselves as something to be managed. Also, unlike the small appliances over in aisle 3, people can communicate and interact with those who are managing them. They want those managers to make some attempt to understand their needs and motivations. In many cases they want those managers to take them to new heights. As a rule, the human resource likes to succeed. While a manager can take care of a person's needs and even their motivations, getting the best from them takes someone who not only knows how to lead, but how to lead well.
Which brings me to my favorite part of this subject: leadership training. For some reason, many companies go to a lot of trouble to train new managers in the various resources they are expected to manage. For some reason this training includes everything except the human resource. Somehow, managers are expected to pick that up through some sort of osmotic process.
Chances are your managers are leading people. Have they received any training in managing the human resource? You probably trained them to manage, have you trained them to lead?

Bob Mason is a speaker, trainer, and author. He founded RLM Planning and Leadership to transform leadership by creating great leaders. He has a passion for helping organizations excel through improved leadership. See what he can do for you at

Time Management Techniques - How to Prioritize Your Tasks to Get More Things Done

There are a lot of people who stay unsuccessful or have alternating experiences with success and failure, simply because they do not know how to apply the right time management techniques. Here are four techniques you can use to manage your time by prioritizing your tasks:
1. ABC analysis
With ABC analysis, what you need to do is simply categorize the urgency or importance of your tasks. For example: A for your most important and urgent task, B for your important but not urgent tasks, and C for not important tasks (which you can remove from your to-do-lists)
2. Pareto analysis (20/80 rule)
I'm sure you've heard this before.
You only wear 20% of all your clothes, and earn the most from 20% of your customers.
In the latter case, to be able to earn big profits, all you do is focusing on the 20%.
In time management, you can do 80% of your tasks with 20% of your time. Therefore, prioritize your tasks and focus 20% of your time on those that are important the most.
3. POSEC (Prioritize by Organizing, Streamlining, Economizing and Contributing)
You can do the following with this technique:
Prioritize your time and set goals in your life.
Organize the things you should accomplish so you can succeed.
Streamline or make more efficient of the things you must do, even though you don't like it at all.
Economize or cut down on the things you should or like to do, but not really urgent.
Contribute by doing the other things that make a difference.
4. The Eisenhower Method
The way how to do this is basically the same as the ABC analysis. The Eisenhower method also looks like Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrants, and it is not complicated.
What you need to do is categorize your tasks as important/unimportant and urgent/not urgent and put in according quadrants. Tasks in unimportant/not urgent quadrant are eliminated, tasks in important/urgent quadrant are done right away, while tasks in unimportant/urgent are delegated and tasks in important/not urgent get an end date and are done personally (set the date and spend quality time).

Time Management - How to Stay Focused and Complete the Task at Hand

The key component to maintaining your inner peace is knowing how to stay focused. If you are easily distracted then it may be necessary for you to develop a plan on how to stay focused. I have listed 7 techniques that you can you use to make focusing easier for you. The techniques are: 1) Make a to-do-list 2) Prioritize 3) Stay off of Facebook 4) Remove all distractions 5) Clean up the clutter 6) Get a Planner and 7) Stay calm
#1 Make a To-Do-List
In the morning, I usually sit down while I am drinking my coffee and I write out my to-do-list. Writing a to-do-list will help you to focus because it will give you order. If you know what you need to do, then you are more likely to stay on task.
#2 Prioritize
Once you write out your to-do-list, you should go back and prioritize. There is 24 hours in a day and you may not be able to complete everything on your list. So if prioritize you will be sure to complete the more important tasks first.
#3 Stay off of Facebook
When you are working on staying focused and completing a task, you should stay off of the internet until you have completed the task you are working on. Browsing on sites such as Facebook and Twitter and checking your email can be very time consuming.
#4 Remove Distractions
You can remove all distractions by working in a quiet area. That means turning off your television and cell phone. If you have small children, it may be a good idea to work on projects early in the morning or late at night.
#5 Clean up Clutter
When I am working, it is difficult for me to stay focused on the task at hand, if everything is out of order. It is also very time consuming when you have to look for things that are out of place
#6 Get a Planner
A planner is a wonderful tool to help you to get organized and to stay focused. You can use your planner to write down appointments, special occasions and other important events. All you have to do is look at the month, date and time and be reminded of the things you have to do on that particular date.
#7 Stay Calm
A key component in staying focused is going to be in your ability to stay calm. If you are anxious then you are not going to be able to sit still long enough to complete a task. A good way to stay calm, when you are trying to complete a task is to take frequent breaks.

Get Back in Control: Goal Setting for Stress Management

Sometimes life's major stresses seem insurmountable! Would you like to be able to move beyond these obstacles?
Many people feel the stress of life as if they were "painted into a corner." They feel trapped or stuck in a life, job, relationship, or situation that is overwhelming and has a "stranglehold" on their health and happiness. In fact, everyone I know has experienced this at some point in their lives. Being a victim to this situation is not ideal for a higher quality of life. There are positive alternatives. You can set your sights on moving in a more positive direction.
Big challenges should not be taken lightly, but alternatives, if not solutions, can be found. For example, you may feel trapped in a job or a career that does not satisfy you. VERY COMMON! You can discover positive career alternatives through skill assessments, interest surveys, or through work with a career coach to help you find a more ideal path. The next thing is big! You must set a goal and then carefully work backward from this goal to your present life to determine the specific steps to follow on your path to your new career. Then you must set a reasonable time table for moving down this path and reaching your goal. Set the GOAL! Then take one step at time until you move along the path to accomplish it.
If you do not know how to do this yourself or you can not stay on your path without support, get an accountability partner to coach you.
Setting goals, following the steps along the path, and then realizing your goal can help to manage the major stressors that may challenge you. This will work for:
your relationships
your career
your education (Continuous Lifelong Learning)
your job
your finances
Important!!!
Do not forget to create balance in your life by also planning:
your health
year emotional growth
your creative or aesthetic needs (art or possibly a walk out in a natural setting)
your intellectual development
your spiritual development
your time with family and friends
Along the way, do not forget to take good care of yourself!
Good Health!

L. John Mason, Ph.D. is the author of the best selling "Guide to Stress Reduction." Since 1977, he has offered Executive Coaching and Training.

PPC Campaign Management - Are You Doing it the Right Way? Find Out NOW

We all know about PPC and campaigns within it. We all manage it every day or week or month depending on when we started. But the thing is campaign management is an important aspect in making loads of cash online. It makes all the difference between a $100 campaign and a $10,000 campaign. So, in this article you are going to learn how to do PPC campaign management the right way.
As you may know certain keywords are more expensive than their counterparts specially the most searched ones. So, the first thing that you should be thinking of doing is to select less searched keywords that are available for cheap. Some of the small businesses even hire a consultant to handle their PPC campaigns.
Experts in managing the PPC campaigns are available in plenty nowadays. They do all the plans, assess your needs and finally develop a campaign that meets their client's requirements.
One of the main reasons that many huge online businesses look out for the guidance of a professional to handle their PPC ad campaigns is because the right planning can bring them huge profits in return. It is a simple concept really, the more keywords that you have in your campaigns, the more people you will be able to reach and in turn more customers you can eventually have.
Okay, the next thing that you should be doing is to choose keywords that match the theme of your online business. By doing this, you don't confuse people about your website and will also let them know what they are going to get in advance. The real secret here is to use those keywords that are searched frequently but don't cost much.
The important concept to grasp here is that if you can get people to stay longer on your site, the higher the chances of getting a potential customer make a transaction. But first, you should concentrate on getting those people to your website.
This is one of the prime reasons why many online entrepreneurs invest a huge amount of money on online advertising since they know that a good advertising campaign will get the snowball rolling.
The next thing in campaign management is to do some research on the keywords before you start any campaign. PPC doesn't have to mean just Google. There are several others to choose from. But personally I only use Google, Yahoo and Bing for my ad campaigns.
One great aspect of using PPC is that you can reach people worldwide. Advertising online reaches a global market not just regional or national. Always thing internationally.
Most of the search engines that run PPC campaigns require you to pay a monthly fees to keep your campaigns going. So, it is a good idea to pay your monthly bills in time as not doing so, can get you out of the search engines in no time.
If you are really thinking of using PPC, then think of it like this. The amount of money that you can make of a single campaign is very significant provided you do it the right way. This is the sole reason that many online businesses are getting their act right in managing their PPC campaigns. With the smart choice of keywords, and a good plan, they are bringing in the big bucks in truck loads.

How to Do the Physical Inventory

Having a minimum par stock level and proper inventory help maintain the proper supply needed in the rooms. Monitoring various items through proper stocking and regular inventory of any categories, whether supplies for guest amenities, cleaning, food, linen, towels etc., help in keeping the hotel to operate smoothly and efficiently.
There are numerous items being used to operate a hotel but since a regular room has a bedroom and a bathroom, bed linen and towels are the primary items required in the room. The availability of these items are vital to be always on-hand.
Physical inventory is needed in order to find out the quantity that are missing, stained or misused. Possible treatment of the stained or misused is done and once treated are put back into circulation. This on-going procedure help reduce shortages and save future expenses.
Par Stock Level are standard quantity of items to be maintained. This will be the total set of items multiplied by 3 par: 3 1/2 par; 4 par; etc. The total number of missing and discarded must tally with the total number of items in circulation to equal the set-up par level.
Variance will be the quantity of items that are either above or below the par stock level. The total quantity of items to be purchased in order to set the quantity of items back to its par stock level will depend on the outcome of the inventory made.
To site an example for this:
Room No.= Bath towel= Hand towel= Face towel= Bath Mat= Bed sheet
101 ======4========4=========4=======1=====3
102 ======4========4=========4=======1=====3
103 ======4========4=========4=======1=====3
Sub Total==12=======12=========12=======3=====9
Ldry Rm.==02========05=========03=======4=====3
Total ====14========17=========15=======7=====12
Par Stock =36========36=========36=======9=====27
Variance(-12)=======(-19)=======(-21)=====(-02)===(-15)
Based on the above example, there is a discrepancy on the variance level, therefore these quantity should be made available and be added in circulation in order to maintain the par level of the stock item that are in circulation.
Without the proper stock of items being maintained and controlled, negative outcome such as follows may occur;
1. Housekeepers, linen runner or laundry attendants will be consuming more time in completing their tasks. (Housekeepers will be going back and forth in the laundry area checking for the availability of items they require to complete each room that they are cleaning. They will be wasting their time in the checking of items instead of putting more time in the cleaning of rooms. This activity affects the quality of work and the payroll. Same thing goes with the linen runner or laundry attendants. They will have to cater to the individual needs of each housekeeper instead of doing their tasks efficiently and in an organized manner. They too will have poor quality of work and consumed more time than they should.
2. Payroll increases
3. Quality of work affected.
4. Low employee morale.
5. Customer dissatisfaction.
These and many other outcome will be experienced due to supply shortages. It is very important that physical inventory takes place on a regular basis to avoid inconveniences and most especially being able to control the budget.

Rental Property Management - It Will Make Or Break Your Rental Property Investment Business

Don't get freaked out about the term "rental property management", it sounds threatening but all it really means is:
A game plan to keep your rentals headache free, cash flow animal .
Does that sound a little better than rental property management?
You better believe it does and guess what. Managing rental apartments is simply a matter of having the proper mind set and doing some planning in advance.
I don't care if your talking about one two family property, a six unit property or twenty rental properties, having a game plan for managing your rental units is key!
Before I go any further, you should know that I always manage my own rental units. The most I ever had was I believe 42 units comprised of 2-6 unit buildings. I would never have an outside property management company manage my properties. It costs too much, they do a lousy job in my experience and its easy to get ripped off. I knew a roofer who had a gig set up, where he would give a kick back to the guy in charge of getting bids for a property management company!
Learning whats involved ahead of time for managing rental houses will save you a lot of time and aggravation.
Your rental property management plan has to cover:

• Who is going to do the basic maintenance repairs,i.e. clogged sink or toilet, broken facet, doorknob ,window, electrical plug not working, etc. Are you going to do any basic maintenance? If not, you'll want to find handymen that won't break the bank. How do you find these guys?
• Will you be able to financially handle more severe problem, such as roof leaking, need to replace a hot water tank, need new furnace, vacancies...
• How to screen tenants. After all, they are the source of your profit center.
• How to manage your tenants so that their personal/financial problems are not your concern.
• When someone moves out or you evict someone, who is going to prep the apartment for the next tenant.
• Speaking of evictions, do you know how to do one? How much does it cost? How long does it take?
• How to adapt the proper mindset for successfully owning rental property.

You have to have a property management plan that works for you. This is key. You see, some people are white collar, some are blue collar, some are hands on, some can't and don't want to know how to turn a screw driver, every bodies situation is different. Understanding this and having a system to manage your property will keep your rental property a cash flow animal.
Let me rephrase that. Having a property management plan that works for you will keep investing in rental property headache free and running like a well oiled machine.
Having your rental units be a cash flow machine is a primarily a function of buying the rental property at the right price. However, even having bought a multifamily house at the right price, you can end your rental property being a cash flow animal without a good property management plan.
Remember, a good rental property plan will

• Help you find good paying tenants who won't do much more harm to your apartment than normal wear and tear.
• Allow you to charge top rent because your apartment warrants it.
• Make sure things get fixed quickly and cost effectively when needed.
• Keep your tenants happy, so you don't have frequent vacancies due to poor property management.
• Make owning rental property stress free.

Understanding what a rental management plan should entail and implementing it will make your rental property business enjoyable and successful.

Mark Petrelis has owned rental property, primarily 2-6 unit buildings since "92". Some of the rental properties were total rehabs while others had existing tenants and only needed cosmetics.

Prioritization - How to Do the Right Things in the Right Order

Okay, so let's discuss how to prioritize and how to make sure that you do the right things in the right order. Most of us, me included, have way too many things to do, we've got a big, giant list of stuff to do and it just keeps getting bigger everyday, and we have no hope of ever getting all of it done, especially since more things get added to the list all the time. One of the things that I like to do is always keep about 120 to 150 percent as many things as I can ever get done on my list. The reason I do that is just so that I've always got stuff to do, I always have things to consider, and I can always prioritize things against each other, and I know that the lowest value things are just going to kind of drop off the list.
So one thing I'd like to give you permission to do and ask you to give permission to yourself to do is to let things fall off the list, don't feel like you need to get everything done because you never will. You are going to die with a few things on your checklist, and that's just the way it is, that's the way life is. So when you give yourself permission to let a few things fall off the list, it makes prioritizing the important things much easier. I'd like to share an insight that I got from my good friend, Wyatt Woodsmall. He did a modeling project where he modeled 50 top entrepreneurs over in Europe and one of the things that one of the entrepreneurs said was, "First thing's first, second thing's not at all," first thing's first, second thing's not at all, and I thought that was an interesting mindset. And again, this is a top entrepreneur, and what you find is that those that are highly productive, they can focus themselves maniacally on getting one thing done. And they know that if they can just get that one important thing done, then all of the rest of the things will take care of themselves and they'll get done and in new time.
So prioritizing to me isn't about really making a big list of things, and then saying, "Okay, I'm going to do this first and this second and this third," although sometimes there's busy work and you've just got to knock a bunch of things like that out. But in the big picture, prioritization is about identifying those things that have the highest lifetime value, and the highest dollar value, and making sure that you do those few things. So here are a couple of techniques for doing this. One of my favorites is to take the list of things that I need to do and try to translate each of them into some kind of dollar value, some kind of an amount of money that if I do that thing, it's going to be worth. Now some things, if you do them, they'll be worth an amount of money or they'll pay off an amount of money once, and some things, if you do them, will be worth an amount of money, but they'll pay off in the long term. It's like the difference between spending and investing. If you spend money, you usually just get something back and you consume it now, whereas, if you invest, you get a pay off for the long term.
Now we humans, our minds and our emotional systems, they're not designed to think long term, they're designed to think instant gratification. We basically have a chimpanzee brain inside of us, and if you've ever studied primate behavior, you know that chimpanzees don't have the ability to delay gratification and they have no impulse control. If an impulse comes over them to go eat a banana, they run over and they grab it and they just eat it, they can't stop and wait. Well, we have a little bit of that impulse control and a little bit of that ability and we need to use it when we're trying to decide on what to do. And instead of just doing the thing that's urgent or the thing that's ringing the alarm or the thing that seems like we've got to do it or the thing that looks like it's fun to do. We need to stop and say, "When I wake up in ten years, 20 years, 50 years, what will I be glad that I did right now," and then by assigning dollar values and looking at things long term, we can really get an understanding of what things will be worth.
I'll give you a great example; let's say that I've got three things on my list to do. One of them is to call back a friend of mine who called and said that they needed to talk to me. Another thing is to create a video like this one, that I'm going to put up on video sites and on my website that's going to share information and teach other people how to manage their time well. And the third thing is I need to talk to someone who's interested in buying one of my products. Okay, I sit down and I say what would each of these things be worth to me long term? Now, if I didn't really take this mindset, if I didn't consider it, what I'm probably going to do is go, "Well, that person needs to be called back, I'll do that quickly. And then what I'll do is I'll talk to the person who's interested in buying one of my products because they wanna buy something right now, and then after those, I'll get around to making the video." That's probably the way I'd intuitively think of it, but watch what happens when I start assigning value to these three things. I look at the value of calling the person back. Well, they've probably got a question that I can answer any time, and in fact, no money and no value is going to come as a result of calling them back, they just want an answer to something. And then I'm going to take the next thing, and what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to take the third item and I'm going to put it second, for effect here.
This person wants to talk to me about buying a product. Now, they actually want to talk to me, it's going to be a longer-term conversation. Intuitively I thought, I'll call that first person back and just knock that out, and then I'll talk to this person because it won't take that long, maybe a little while. But when I ask what's the value? Well, they might want to buy a product that I sell for $1,000.00 or $2,000.00 or maybe even more, what's the value of that? Well, let's say that 50 percent of the people that I talk to in person actually buy something and the average value is $1,000.00, well, that might be worth a $500.00 estimate right there. But now let's talk about this video, let's talk about making a simple, little training video that I'm going to put on video sharing sites and on my website that's going to stay online for years, what's that worth? Well, if I go online and I look and I see the other videos that I've put up and I see that every year thousands of people, on average, watch one of the videos that I've created and I do the math for every thousand people that watched the video. Let's say one percent of them come to my website and they sign up for my newsletter and eventually they consider becoming a customer, and let's say that every one of those people, these subscribers to my list are very valuable because they tend to be very high quality and they like our products. Say that each of those people is worth $25.00, well, now I've got from 1,000 people, I get $250.00 back, but wait a minute, I know that on average, 5,000 people a year will watch one of my videos.
So there's $1,250.00 just the first year alone, maybe I make a conservative estimate and say that video will probably be good for five years, what've we got now? That's $6,250.00, if my math is correct. That little video is actually worth way, way more than the other two items combined, and yet, when I thought of it intuitively, I would put the video on the back burner. Now you understand why I'm here making this video, of course, and why I'm not just looking at my list of people to call back and calling them back. In fact, I'll tell you, I've become very difficult to reach by telephone, and I'm notorious for taking a long time to return phone calls. Why? Because it's usually a waste of time, usually people just want to say hi and talk and yak about a bunch of things, and I've got better things to do like making videos that can help thousands and thousands and tens of hundreds of thousands of people. So when you're trying to figure out what thing to do first and you're trying to prioritize, make a list of the stuff that you need to do, and translate it into a dollar value. Force yourself to do it and think long term, think five years, ten years, 20 years. Once you get good at this, it takes a few seconds to do it. This video, I can do that math, I actually made that example up of those three things live while I'm talking to you here, I didn't have it prepared, I didn't figure all the math out before hand. You can just do it, you can just figure out, this thing's worth $5.00, this thing is not worth anything, this thing could be worth $10,000.00, just write them down and quickly the most important thing will rise to the top.
Another way to think about prioritization, by the way, is to prioritize the three things in business that are the things that create all the value, and those are marketing, products, and relationships. Now we don't have time to delve into those three in this short video, but I'll tell you right now, marketing, products, and relationships is where all the value is created and all the money is made. So prioritize to the top of your list, creating, marketing, and sales, and doing marketing sales. Creating products and services, things that people will buy and continue to buy long term, and building relationships specifically with those people that can help you grow yourself and your business. So these would be partners in business, these would be team members that you're going to hire; these would be people you're going to collaborate with on products and services. In other words, those that are going to help you grow yourself and your business long term: marketing, products, and relationships. If you prioritize those to the top of the list, you will wake up far more productive in the future.